Topeka ? The Department of Homeland Security is seeking public input on its proposed $451 million biodefense lab, which could be built in Kansas.

The department plans a series of “public scoping meetings” this month and in September to solicit comment on the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility. The agency also is taking written comment through Sept. 28.

Last month, the department narrowed the list of possible locations to five sites, including one at Kansas State University in Manhattan.

Department officials will conduct a public meeting on the proposal at 6 p.m. Aug. 28 in the KSU Union. It also will have meetings at the other four potential sites, as well as in Washington, D.C., New York and Connecticut.

The meetings are the first step in putting together environmental impact statements, which evaluate how the facility’s construction and operation would affect the local area.

“It’s an opportunity for the public and citizens of Manhattan to voice concerns or comments about the facility,” said Manhattan Mayor Tom Phillips. “They’ll be able to say what they think needs to be studied in the overall environmental impact statement.”

The proposed lab will be a top-security facility used to study animal and human diseases and to devise vaccines.

According to the Homeland Security Department, the lab will include an area that will be Biosecurity Level 4, the status needed to study diseases such as Nipah virus and Hendra virus, which affect livestock and humans. The department says a new lab is needed to replace an aging facility in New York.

In some areas of the country, residents have protested the proposed facility. Phillips said he hadn’t heard much opposition in Kansas, but he said Manhattan residents are interested in knowing about the safeguards that will be in place to contain contaminants.

Following completion of the environmental studies by October 2008, the department will pick a location for the lab. Construction is expected to start in 2010, with completion in 2014.

The other four sites in the running are Flora Industrial Park in Madison County, Miss.; Texas Research Park in San Antonio; Umstead Research Farm in Granville County, N.C.; and the University of Georgia in Athens, Ga.